A Christmas Gift For All Year Round

Posted at 23:56pm on 24th December 2009

I was reading, this week, a short piece titled: Right People
Get It Wrong. The writer cited two extremes in the range of
good and evil: those who appear to live selfless, sacrificial
lives; and those who are utterly unconcerned about the damage that
they do to others. But the gist, the moral, of the article, was
that we should, none of us, be too quick to label people as one or
other. We can be too swift in ‘filing’ people in
categories of good or bad, or even writing them off altogether,
said the author.

GOOD AND BAD

I thought, immediately, of my daughter. By anyone’s
‘filing’ methods, she would, at one time, have been
labelled in the ‘bad’ category. But as I was to
discover, painfully, things are rarely as clear cut as they
appear.

Katya – not her real name - thinking she could take
control of her life and escape the unhappiness at home when her
father and I split up, started on cannabis at the age of fourteen.
She quickly learned that far from being ‘in control’,
drugs became her master and she its slave. By the time she was
sixteen she had run away from home, and by eighteen she was hooked
on heroin.

Terrified of what her addiction was doing to her, she eventually
begged for help. Naturally, I gave it – and so began a decade
long battle for her freedom. During that time she did what all
addicts do to fund their habit: whatever it took.

But she was still my daughter!

DREGS OF SOCIETY

Three times in the next few years she returned from London and
begged for help, and three times we gave it. It was perfectly
obvious, to all who saw her, what she was into. Her sallow skin,
sunken eyes and purple-punctured arms and legs sent a clear message
that she was a ‘junkie’; the ‘dregs of
society.’ But by then I didn’t care what the neighbours
thought, or what category of ‘badness’ they had filed
her in. I loved her. I yearned for her freedom.

We arranged a course of methadone for her, and faithfully took
her to the pharmacist to collect her prescription. She did well.
Too well! Convinced that she was cured, she returned to London and
to those whom she believed to be her friends.

On the second occasion, our GP arranged for her to have
residential help. Help? Despite the drugs, she was young and
vibrant, and she was sent to what the Victorians called the lunatic
asylum – a huge, red-brick institution – reserved for
those poor, unfortunate members of society whose mental instability
makes them a danger to themselves and others. Drumming heels, moans
and cries: the corridors rang with Dickensian misery and
despair.

It was a dreadful place for a young woman and, sure enough, when
some of her visitors offered her a way out – back to the
drugs – Katya took it. The third time, the last in which her
stepfather and I were involved, she came off
‘cold-turkey’ – a horrific experience I hope I
never again have to witness.

Still she went back to her old haunts.

TOUGH LOVE

In the end we had to practise what is known as ‘tough
love’. It became increasingly obvious that I was merely a
cushion, inadvertently preventing Katya from taking responsibility
for herself. Or from reaching rock bottom. After nearly a decade of
trying to help her kick her habit, it took a mere three months for
her to achieve it for herself.

Katya put herself through college, graduated, settled down and
had a family. For five years she lived a happy and fulfilled life.
Then devastatingly, and in suspicious circumstances, she died.

She was a hoarder, my daughter! When I went through her
belongings after her death, I came across address books and letters
dating back years; back to the time when she was at the height of
her addiction. And what I found opened my eyes to this question of
good and bad.

A SURPRISING GOOD SAMARITAN

Among the tattered, dog-eared missives, were several from people
who were clearly strangers to my daughter. At the very time that
she was using dubious and illegal means to fund her
self-destructive heroin habit, it appeared that she had given
thirty pounds to someone she’d met on a journey. Thirty
pounds was a substantial sum of money in those days. And from the
tone of the thank-you letter, it was obvious that she had not
expected its return.

Again and again I found that she had bailed people out. People
like herself. The sort of people from whom you wouldn’t
expect a thank-you letter. Yet they had, all of them, taken the
trouble to write; to express their gratitude; to show that although
they considered themselves ‘worthless’, they
appreciated the sense of worth instilled in them by my
daughter’s gift of money.

BAD PEOPLE SOMETIMES DO GOOD

The point of my story is that I remember the days when I used to
feel a faint sense of disdain for the young scantily-clad women I
saw frequenting the darkened recesses around Kings Cross, London,
or the sullen youths who begged for money on the streets. They
should get a job like the rest of us, I’d think,
skirting my way around them, my eyes downcast so as to avoid their
pleading gaze. I won’t give to them. They’ll only
spend it on drugs.

As Jeff Lucas, author of Right People Get It Wrong
said, decent, respectable people like me sometimes do get it wrong.
Before my daughter started on drugs, I probably ‘wrote
off’ a whole section of humanity because they were the
‘dregs of society’. The homeless and the helpless, with
whom, just this week, pre-Christmas 2009, Prince William, heir to
the British throne, identified himself by sleeping rough with them.
Someone’s sons. And someone’s daughters.

AND RIGHT PEOPLE GET IT WRONG!

Amidst the hype and frivolity of Christmas, we have constant
reminders of what it’s all about: Jesus’ birth and the
hope of new life. God’s gift to us, to help us become
‘good’ people. We may even congratulate ourselves that
we can safely say that we come into that category. But the point of
God’s gift is that, like the proverbial dog, it’s not
just for Christmas. The homeless, the helpless, the heroin user
will be with us in New Year and beyond. And while we’re busy
writing them off and filing them in the category of
‘bad’, they may, actually, be the very people
who’ve most understood, and practised, the true message of
Christmas.

This article may be reproduced on any non-commercial
website or blog on condition that it appears unaltered, in its
entirety, and that the following by-line is prominently displayed
beneath it.

Author of a number of books, one a No 4 Bestseller, Mel
Menzies is also an experienced Speaker at live events, as well as
on Radio and TV. www.melmenzies.co.uk

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